France says it will help draft a constitution for the Palestinian state while Abbas visits Paris
France hosted Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Paris on Tuesday for a meeting at which French President Emmanuel Macron pledged to help the Palestinian Authority draft a constitution for a future state.
Macron, whose country led the way in recognizing a Palestinian state at the U.N. General Assembly in September, said France and the Palestinian Authority would set up a joint committee to work on drawing up a new framework for the state.
“This committee will be responsible for working on all legal aspects: constitutional, institutional and organizational,” he told reporters, adding that Abbas had presented him with the first draft of a possible constitution.
He added that France would provide 100 million euros ($116.62 million) in humanitarian aid to Gaza by 2025.
Ahead of the meeting, France expressed concern to the Palestinian Authority about recent illegal payments made by Ramallah to Palestinian security prisoners, a senior French official told The Times of Israel.
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Abbas ousted PA Finance Minister Omar Bitar on Monday for approving payments to Palestinian security prisoners through an old mechanism that rewarded them based on the length of their sentence, a Palestinian official and a second source familiar with the matter revealed to the Times of Israel on Monday.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas arrives for a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Presidential Palace in Paris on November 11, 2025. (Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP)
The payments represented a blatant violation of Ramallah’s promise to France and other key supporters in the international community that the Palestinian Authority would reform its prisoner payment system, which critics call “pay-to-slay.”
While Abbas signed a law abolishing the old system in February, the new mechanism, which strictly ties welfare payments to the recipient’s financial need, has not yet been fully implemented. Bitar’s firing also highlighted the domestic opposition the Palestinian Authority faces because of the move.
After their meeting at the Elysee Palace, Macron told reporters that Abbas had committed to launching an audit by an American company to confirm that pay-to-slay no longer existed.
It is unclear whether Macron was referring to the audit that Ramallah invited the Trump administration to to confirm that the reform is being implemented.
Ramallah hopes to have a U.S. team come to the West Bank in early 2026 to conduct the review, a Palestinian official told The Times of Israel on Monday.
In September, Macron said his decision to recognize a Palestinian state depended on commitments from the Palestinian Authority that included disarming Hamas, excluding the terror group from future governance and carrying out a deep overhaul of Palestinian governance.
Israel has long opposed the formation of a Palestinian state and accused France and other nations that recently recognized Palestinian statehood of “rewarding Hamas.” Israel has also repeatedly announced that the Palestinian Authority cannot play a role in governing Gaza after the war, although that idea remains popular among Israel’s Western allies.
French President Emmanuel Macron (r) meets with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and other Palestinian Authority officials at the Elysee Presidential Palace in Paris on November 11, 2025. (Christophe PETIT TESSON / EPA POOL / AFP)
After the meeting, Abbas renewed his commitment to “reforms,” including “holding presidential and parliamentary elections after the end of the war.”
“We are close to finalizing a draft of the interim constitution of the State of Palestine and the laws on elections and political parties,” he said, adding that he agreed to “the rapid establishment of the Constitutional Committee.”
“We are committed to a culture of dialogue and peace,” said Abbas. “And we want a democratic, unarmed state that is committed to the rule of law, transparency, justice, pluralism and rotation of power.”
During the joint press conference, Macron also warned that any Israeli annexation plans in the West Bank would constitute a “red line” and provoke a European reaction.
“Plans for partial or total annexation, whether legal or de facto, represent a red line to which we will respond decisively together with our European partners,” he said.
“Settler violence and the acceleration of settlement projects are reaching new heights, threatening the stability of the West Bank and representing a violation of international law,” Macron added.
A Palestinian uses a cellphone to record a burning truck after an Israeli settler attack in the village of Beit Lid, east of Tulkarm, West Bank, November 11, 2025. (JAAFAR ASHTIYEH / AFP)
Since the beginning of October, there has been a sharp increase in settler attacks in the West Bank, coinciding with the annual olive harvest. During this period, settlers and sometimes soldiers committed almost daily violence against olive pickers, who sometimes included volunteers from Israel and abroad, Jews and others.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said Friday that it recorded 264 settler attacks in October that caused death, property damage or both.
The attacks come amid a rapid rise in settler violence since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack that sparked the war in Gaza.
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